[General] My HTC Hero - Android experience

[Majed B.]

Hey guys, where did you buy the Hero from?

On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 10:32 AM, Burhan Khalid<burhan.khalid at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the update guys. I am also looking at getting my hands on this
> device. One thing to note -- HTC is pushing the HTC Sense UI to the HTC G2 /
> Magic (the second Andoid touchscreen phone) for free, since that phone and
> the Hero share most of the same internal hardware.  However, you can only
> "officially" get the update if your device is HTC branded and not
> T-mobile/vodafone (it seems the other devices have lower RAM).
>
> Tips on where you purchased the device would help, and the cost with
> shipping would help. Amazon UK lists it at almost 400 GBP.
>
> Thanks
> On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 10:01 AM, Majed B. <majedb at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Apparently Android applications support UTF8, but the system fonts don't.
>>
>> There are people who installed Hebrew, so Arabic can be done as well.
>>
>>
>> http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Google+Mobile/thread?tid=16d0baeeba82ea71&hl=en
>> http://androidcore.com/android-programming-tutorials/415.html
>> http://blog.amr-gawish.com/39/arabic-language-in-android/
>>
>> http://handheld.softpedia.com/get/Educational/Languages/Arabic-Soft-Keyboard-81352.shtml
>>
>> I bought my Nokia 9500 communicator when it first came out and didn't
>> have Arabic support and I didn't care to install Arabic support,
>> because I tried it with 9250 and the phone kept crashing...
>> What I do now is when I get an Arabic SMS, I copy the text and paste
>> it in a document and then the text shows in Arabic. So maybe if you
>> copy some Arabic-enabled fonts to your system, you can do the same
>> trick.
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 18, 2009 at 5:45 AM, Ahmad Al-Ibrahim<ahmad at koutbo6.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> >
>> > Majed B. wrote:
>> >> That's great!!!
>> >>
>> >> 1) How was the typing experience on the virtual/onscreen keyboard? Was
>> >> the screen laggy or had issues with recognizing your input?
>> >>
>> >
>> > At the begining, since I haven't used a touch screen phone before, I had
>> > some difficulty to get things right, then it became easy to write, I
>> > haven't noticed any lag. If you have big finger you'll have problems
>> > recognizing your input. but you can always keep pressing and move till
>> > you reach the correct letter. it happens sometimes.
>> >
>> >> 2) Since you used it for 4 hours and consumed 40%, so the battery
>> >> life-time with constant wifi & calls here and there, the battery's max
>> >> is 10 hours.
>> >>
>> >
>> > Not necessarily, I was using the phone most of the time playing here and
>> > there, and thats why it took 40%, the phone can go in sleep mode, where
>> > the battery consumption is much less than having it on all the time. and
>> > the phone was awake 77% of that time, which means I didnt give it the
>> > chance to sleep well :)
>> >
>> > What is also great about android is apps do not close, they sleep too.
>> > Lets say you want to close a running app, you just hit back button and
>> > whatever in memory gets dumped to the storage and the app goes to sleep,
>> > and once you launch the app again memory is restored from storage. this
>> > helps to save battery, CPU, memory resources. (exception may apply for
>> > network apps).
>> >
>> >> 3) Youtube videos: Have you tried playing ones with fast motion? Like
>> >> action-movie trailers.
>> >>
>> >
>> > Yup, Transformers 2 trailer without glitches.
>> >
>> >> 4) Have you explored the possibility of using another mail client, if
>> >> any is available?
>> >>
>> >
>> > There are other mail clients in android market, haven't tried any of
>> > them.
>> >
>> >> 5) How much internal memory do you have?
>> >>
>> >
>> > Internal phone storage 128MB, external storage 2 GB SD card.
>> >
>> >> P.S.: The UI is a custom-made one by HTC (Called Sense) and I guess
>> >> you could override it if you don't like it or some features annoy you
>> >> (At the cost of losing other UI features).
>> >>
>> >
>> > Not interested, I love it the way it is shipped :)
>> >
>> > I have no idea where the SMS is stored, and I dont think there is away
>> > to change that in the menu and the settings.
>> >
>> > I went through two problems, one of them the lack of Arabic support. I
>> > cant read/write arabic. Arabic is expected to be supported natively in
>> > the next version of Android 2.0. The other problem is related to email,
>> > it happened twice today, some emails when I open them I get a message
>> > saying "the mail is still on the server" and I cannot see the body of
>> > the email. the client used is HTC mail client, I know there are
>> > alternatives in android market, but just wanted to let you know about
>> > this.
>> >
>> >> You've restored my faith in HTC Hero!!
>> >>
>> >
>> > You should never lose the faith in a Hero :)
>> >
>> > Regards,
>> >
>> > Ahmad Al-Ibrahim
>> >
>> >> On Mon, Aug 17, 2009 at 11:56 PM, Ahmad Al-Ibrahim <ahmad at koutbo6.com>
>> >> wrote:
>> >>> Salam,
>> >>>
>> >>> My hero has just arrived today, and I'm so excited to have in my
>> >>> hands.
>> >>>
>> >>> This is a brief of every part of the device:
>> >>>
>> >>> Social experience
>> >>> I've started with linking my google, flickr, facebook, and twitter
>> >>> accounts, and the device pulled in the contacts from google contacts,
>> >>> I
>> >>> can easily assign contacts to friends from facebook. and get live
>> >>> updated tweets from twitter in the home screen. as well as sending
>> >>> update to twitter and facebook. albums were also synced with flickr
>> >>> and
>> >>> facebook, I can see my albums or my friends albums.
>> >>>
>> >>> Mail
>> >>> It was easy to configure my mail accounts, and I'm getting email
>> >>> notifications for new mails. I really like the email application as it
>> >>> is extremely easy to use.
>> >>>
>> >>> Browsing
>> >>> What can I say more? its based on webkit engine, so websites are
>> >>> rendered the same way they are in the desktop screens, webkit is used
>> >>> by
>> >>> Safari and Google Chrome browsers. the browsing experience is amazing
>> >>> specially with the tapping to zoom in and using two fingers to zoom
>> >>> out
>> >>> and one finger to navigate.
>> >>>
>> >>> SMS
>> >>> Text messaging is similar to chat conversation which is cool, it lacks
>> >>> the ability to forward a message (I really dont use forwarding much as
>> >>> I'm not a spammer)
>> >>>
>> >>> Calendar
>> >>> The calendar looks neat, I haven't used it yet. But I see it possible
>> >>> to
>> >>> link other calendars, possibly google calendar and outlook.
>> >>>
>> >>> Music
>> >>> There is a music player, sound quality is very good, haven't played
>> >>> much
>> >>> with it.
>> >>>
>> >>> Video
>> >>> The device is shipped with Youtube client, videos played were smooth
>> >>> and
>> >>> clear.
>> >>>
>> >>> UI
>> >>> The most amazing part of HTC Hero, it is really exciting to play with
>> >>> the phone with this UI, sometimes the response is a bit slow, but its
>> >>> not something that prevent people from buying the phone as they
>> >>> mentioned in previous review in engaged.
>> >>>
>> >>> Android Market
-- 
       Majed B.